Time to Get Our Sh*t Together

“It’s time to get our sh*t together and focus on sanitation”, is the message that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is bringing to the World Water Forum Marseilles.

The lack of progress on sanitation, which was reconfirmed by the 2012 JMP Update, is what originally fueled the foundation’s call to action to “reinvent the toilet.” To us, reinventing the toilet is not just about science and technology, it’s about a whole new approach to working with poor communities in urban and rural areas of the developing world to create affordable, sustainable, and aspirational sanitation solutions.

The Gates Foundation has turned the usual distribution of funding and advocacy for WASH programmes on its head by committing 90% of its WASH funding to sanitation, write staff members Frank Rijsberman and Sara Rogge.

The Foundation is focussing on the following components to achieve its long term vision of providing sustainable sanitation services for all:

Explore and Implement Sanitation without Sewers

End Open Defecation

Provide Sustainable Services at Scale

Promote Sanitation as a Business

Cooperate and Partner

In 2011, the Gates Foundation committed US$ 120 million in new commitments, grants and contracts, 90% of which was focused on sanitation, including:

US$ 79 million for Sanitation Science and Technology, including grants to 8 universities to develop prototypes of affordable toilets that don’t need to be connected to sewers

US$ 47 million for Delivery Models at Scale by implementing demand-led sanitation programmes, which aim to end open defecation for 30 million people by 2015

US$ 18 million for Policy & Advocacy grants that support sanitation policy development and advocacy campaigns

Read the full details of Gates Foundation message for the World Water Forum here

Composting is commonly used as an effective means of stabilizing wastewater biosolids and reducing pathogens to very low concentrations. However, it has been shown that under certain conditions Salmonella can regrow in previously composted biosolids. Growth of seeded Salmonella typhimurium in composted biosolids ranging from two weeks to two years maturity w […]

Hi Joe, What studies did you read? Why would anyone expect the finished ''biosolids'' (which are almost indistinguishable from soil) to become sterile? What would pathogenic microbes adapted to living in water without oxygen in our guts have to do in a pile of dry soil? Plus it is obvious that if there is new fecal contamination, the prev […]

We're happy to announce our new seminars to you: Attention! Please note that all the following seminars will be conducted in German only! San ABC plus The next Seminar is an advanced training which aims to deepen the knowledge of the participants on sustainable sanitation in the context of development cooperation. The training will take place Aachen fro […]

Dear Penny, Thanks a lot for the information. Of course it would be interesting for us to know the activities that were carried out to monitor safety. My only issue is the long term (health) effects that lack of water and hand washing can have on the girls. I don't know how other organisations/NGOs that are promoting cups in low income areas and schools […]

The Africa APPG together with Polygeia seeks to explore the lessons from the Ebola crisis for community-led health systems strengthening through examining the current response to the Ebola crisis, and gathering evidence from experts and the affected communities in West Africa.

Communities declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) through Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) did not experience any case of the Ebola outbreak, despite other surrounding communities in Marbibi county that experienced the worst cases.

The CLTS Knowledge Hub is hosting a webinar on Participatory Design Development for Sanitation on Thursday 26th March 2015 at 10am GMT. Ben Cole will be discussing his experiences in applying participatory design to accompany and extend Malawi’s national CLTS program since 2012